


Tattered

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Consentacles, M/M, Masochism, Other, The Joy of Eldritch Sex, frisky goings-on in a hay loft, in a manner that rapidly degenerates into monster sex, knot safe for work, musings on the horror potential of maypoles, tentacle abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 10:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8486641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: Peace, contentment, and satisfaction are all well and good, but sometimes a little pain makes for a very refreshing change.





	

Long fingers carded through the ribbons. Woven cornsilk and cobwebs slipped fluidly over wracked wood and uneven bark, never catching on a splinter or a thorn. The fingers petted.

A voice hummed in the dark. “The things they say about you.”

“Hmm?”

It was night. The air was cool and still, balanced uneasily on the precipice of November, and the stars were far away. The barn was musty and dry and they were sitting up in the hay loft, tucked away by themselves for a little while.

“Mortals. About maypoles.”

One ribbon was picked up and run through a hand. The slight tug and unrelenting pressure of the fingers on the tendril made him sigh. “Oh?”

“Yes. They think… you know that organ they have? Between the legs.”

“I don’t usually see the mortals undressed. Not when they’ve got flesh on them, at least.”

The fingers pinched. “Don’t be coy. You know it. They talk about it constantly, about putting it inside of each other. They think you’re representative of that.”

Enoch let out a low, long laugh. “Why don’t they ever wonder if maybe _that_ is representative of _me_?”

A pair of icy white eyes fixed themselves on his face. “Humans? Being presumptuous? Say it isn’t so.”

Enoch chuckled and curled the ribbon in his companion’s grasp. He wrapped his ribbon a few times around the gnarled wrist and stroked idly over a hollow spot in the wood, brushing the rim of a hole. “Well, well. I suppose there is some similarity in use, you have to admit…”

“Tsk.” The hand released one tendril and took up a handful of others. The cold fingers brushed the fabric of his head, separating the ribbons at the roots and squeezing all the way down their lengths. Enoch hummed again.

“They miss the point with you,” the Beast said, “mortals. They don’t see how wrong you are. How strange you are. What a lie you are.”

“Pardon?”

The Beast divided his handful of ribbons into separate strips and began to plait them together. “You look like you should be a tree. Standing so tall, but no roots, no branches, no bark. You bear no fruit, you bleed no sap. But you do make flowers, don’t you? All lovely ribbons and bows, if you were ever to be wrapped all the way up. It wouldn’t take long. Mere minutes.”

Enoch shifted. The braiding made a sensation that pinched and pressed, just enough to be uncomfortable.

“Those are going to get tangled,” he cautioned, not very seriously. The little tugs and twists caused a frisson to run through him. The part of him that knew best how to use the cat skin wanted him to arch a spine he didn’t have.

“They can’t tangle.”

“Just because they haven’t yet…” He tried to scold but it was no good. The fingers tugged firmly on the ribbons to tighten the braid and it hurt. Enoch felt unmistakeable heat slosh through him. “Mmmmm. Ouch. You’re so mean.”

The hands didn’t slow. “Is it painful?”

“A little.” Nothing ever seemed to hurt him at all. There was no reason for hurt, not in a place so sweet and so happy. No reason for a god to ache and break and writhe in the dark. One had to make one’s own reasons. “Actually, you could do a little more.”

The fingers paused in process of making the braid and one hand freed itself to pick up another ribbon. One hand pinched the ribbon and used the thumb to press the fabric into the gap between the first two fingers. He stroked all the way down the ribbon like this, and then went back up to to hold it, fold it, crease it sharply.

It tingled hard enough to send little needling stabs up through the limb. He made an airless noise and laughed again, a little helplessly, unable to stop. “Oh! Oh, you’re _so_ mean…”

The hands swiftly twisted the ends of the braid into a loose knot. It wasn’t too tight to wriggle out of, but enough to bother and itch. He wondered with a sudden thrill what it would be like to be tied too tightly to move, unable to unknot himself. How tightly his companion could tie a knot.

The wooden hands were moving again. They took ribbons one at a time and began twisting the ends around and around themselves, making little loops and coils that ended, always, with a delectable little tug to tighten the knot. He jerked every time. After making three nooses, his companion seemed to grow bored with the pattern and moved on to petting again.

Enoch shifted restlessly. “Now, I do think that you could tangle me.”

“Hmm?”

“In your branches. I think I could get horribly caught in any sort of bramble in your Woods.”

The Beast let out a soft laugh. “Do you think so? These are very slippery. I don’t think you’d snarl up.”

Enoch curled a few ribbons around a sharp shoulder and a slender neck. He still had himself wrapped around a wrist and drew his companion closer. “Perhaps. Only one way to know.”

“You shouldn’t make yourself helpless in my Woods,” his companion murmured. “Who knows what could happen to you.”

There’s only one thing that happens to people lost in the Woods. Enoch did not think that was what the Beast was talking about.

The Beast picked up another ribbon and creased it lengthwise. Enoch let out a little sound. Then he bent it back on itself, creased it again, and carefully, carefully began to rip it in half. Enoch was tense for the first few inches, but then the hot, awful sensation began to pulsate with every splitting fiber and straining strand, and by the time the tear reached all the way up to his head he was wriggling furiously, a cicada-like rumble coming from all around as his other tendrils whipped and writhed in the air, reaching for his lovely tormentor.

“Did that hurt?” the Beast asked sweetly.

He groaned. “Oh, yes…”

“That’s how my Woods would handle you,” the Beast murmured. He reached for another ribbon and began to fold it again, hold it again, crease it again, nick the tiny tear and pull against the tension of the straining fabric, making a long, stinging, hissing sound almost as distracting as the pain itself.

Enoch groaned.

“You’d be ripped apart,” the Beast went on, “if you were left to rot in a bramble bush somewhere. But it would go so much more slowly, the wind and snow picking you apart thread by thread, stitch by stitch, until there was nothing left but a melted heap of soiled fibers.”

Enoch was shaking in the still air, braided, knotted, gnarled, tattered, torn. The wooden hands petted him and he wanted them to take fistfuls of his fabric and rip it off. Flay it from him.

One hand reached up, into the place where all the tendrils met, and felt across the base of his head. Tendrils shifted and swayed, desperately sensitive at that spot and eager to consume the invader. The Beast absentmindedly let them wrap all around his right hand while the left moved callously onward, selecting the centermost ribbon and using one hand to tease it, squeeze it, wrap it around and around his fingers to entangle himself with it. He pulled on it, hard.

Enoch made another airless sound and wriggled, helpless and aching. The threads that attached the ribbon to his head began to fray and split, each snap another stab of sensation. The merciless hand tightened and rotated on its graceful wrist, the elbow bending to pull the ribbon breakingly tight, all the way until the hand was right below the left antler and those beautiful, unspeakable eyes looked at Enoch with their pupils all burning red and their edges all ringed with blue.

“I think I could tear this one in thirds,” the Beast purred, “and braid it.”

He couldn’t be sure what did it: the pain, the eyes, the words, the voice. Something terrible and sticky-hot crescendoed unstoppably within him, blotting out the world with a raw, all-feeling, delicious agony. He almost didn’t know what he’d done until the Beast slackened his grip on the ribbon (earning a moan that even Enoch wasn’t certain was more relieved or disappointed) and began scenting the air. His own embarrassment and the Beast’s delighted laughter burst out at roughly the same time.

“Really?” the Beast chortled. “This? Oh, Enoch.”

Enoch made a dismissive kind of noise and shifted in the hay loft, tingling, quivering in every thread. The Beast released the vice grip on a handful of ribbons and slowly unwound the aching single tendril from his fingers, snickering all the while.

“Shameless,” the Beast said. “Voluptuous. They’re all right about you. You are a sexual metaphor, aren’t you?”

“If I am, I’m as surprised as anyone,” Enoch insisted, using the freed ribbons to seize his companion and drag him close. The Beast let himself be handled so without a peep of protest. How was that for shameless? “What, did you think you were doing me real harm?”

“Not as such. I could tell you were enjoying yourself, but perhaps I underestimated the extent.”

“You know I just can’t help myself around you, turtle dove.”

The Beast snorted. “How flattering. But I really shouldn’t be surprised. It would be much stranger if you wanted to roll around in this hay loft with a monster from the Woods and didn’t enjoy rending and tearing more than you should.”

“Hmmm.” Enoch wrapped some more ribbons around him and held the Beast close, doing a little petting of his own. His ribbons still felt tender. “Following that line of reasoning, should I conclude that you like rolling around in a hay loft with a satisfaction spirit because you want to be treated very, very nicely?”

One of the ribbons dared a long, slow curl up one withered thigh.

“Keep those filthy things to yourself,” the Beast said encouragingly.

“I saw your eyes go blue, beautiful. You liked that, too.”

The Best huffed and didn’t immediately reply, choosing instead to nestle closer. They stayed there, tucked away in the hay loft, each wrapped in his thoughts as the sharp, sweet scent of liqueur slowly began to fade. The Beast ran a hand across Enoch’s face very softly, very slowly. One of the ribbons still trailed from his wrist. He didn’t seem to notice it.

“What am I going to do with you?” the Beast murmured.

“More of the same would be nice,” Enoch admitted. “Maybe a little later.”


End file.
